There exists a wide variety of snowshoes, many of which employ wooden frames, others employing metal frames. Similarly, the webbing used in many snowshoes consists of a network of wooven strands of rawhide or, in some cases, of synthetic polymeric material. Some deckings are molded entirely of a relatively rigid plastic.
Similarly, there are also many types of harnesses which are devised to secure a shoe or boot to a snowshoe. Most of these harnesses consist of an arrangement of straps which encircle the shoe or boot and which are secured to either the network of webbing or the decking. One example of such an arrangement is described in Canadian Pat. No. 993,468 issued July. 29, 1976 to Prater.
Attempts have also been made to mount on snowshoes a harness of the type used on cross-country skis. One example of such arrangement is described in Canadian Pat. No. 1,074,356 issued Mar. 25, 1980 to Gros-Louis. However, the combination described in this patent requires improvement: while walking with snowshoes, the user needs to lift the front end of the snowshoe at the start of a step and then move the snowshoe forward. As the snowshoe is lifted, relative movement between the snowshoe and the boot occurs. In order to permit this movement, it is essential that an opening be provided in the snowshoe webbing or decking to allow the front end of the boot to pivot in the opening as the snowshoe reaches an upwardly inclined position relative to the ground (the tail end of the snowshoe usually dragging behind in the snow); the snowshoe and the user's boot then return to a horizontal plane as the user returns his foot on the ground. The relative movement between boot and snowshoe cannot be achieved with the arrangement described in the above Gros-Louis patent.